


connected hearts

by Alexxya



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action, Angst, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, SasuSaku Angst, Scene Rewrite, Strong Haruno Sakura
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25430563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexxya/pseuds/Alexxya
Summary: After she finds out about his actions in Kumo, Sakura decides she needs to kill Sasuke.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	connected hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashlin_Axelrod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashlin_Axelrod/gifts).



It was as if the rug was pulled from under her feet and she didn't know how much or for how long she would fall. As Sai ratted on about Naruto and his suffering, which she contributed to, it was clear the answer was pretty deep.

"I'll tell him," she said. "I'll talk with Naruto."

Sakura wiped her cheeks dry. "Shikamaru, what's your plan?"

He lowered his head. "I'll round up Sasuke's abilities and devise a plan. I was hoping to ask Naruto since he was the last one to fight him… on that day."

"The cloud ninja took out the anger Sasuke caused them by beating Naruto… and he let them," Sai said. "He won't tell on him."

He furrowed his brows. "For the sake of the village-"

"I'll do it," Sakura said and the boys eyed her. "Naruto talked with me about the fight. I'll tell you everything." She turned to Sai. "You can write a report on what you saw at Orochimaru's hideout."

Shikamaru agreed and she excused herself to go write the report. In less than thirty minutes it was done. The more she wrote, the harder it got. Memories tumbled over her, way beyond Naruto's recount of the fight, going over every time she saw and heard of Sasuke after he left.

Now the truth she kept locked up in her heavy heart for the sake of hope was out. They couldn't reach Sasuke. Because this was not the type of enemy to be taken down by figuring out the right ninja to do just the right combo.

Sasuke took on the entire team when they were at the hideout; he killed Itachi, who not only incapacitated the top four jonin of the village, but whose low-power clone whipped the floor with them. And finally, the freshest memory shadowing both her and Naruto: he broke into a village like Kumo and defeated a tailed beast…

Shikamaru wasn't there to see the four tails, but she was, and to take something like that on at full force was an impossible feat.

To some degree, he had to have this in mind, so the real question wasn't what ninja to bring on the mission to kill Sasuke. No, the real question was: how many ninja was he willing to sacrifice in order to do this? The five that left the gates that day, weren't they enough?

_Not even you could stop him?_

_Naruto, next time I'm coming with you. I promise!_

_Naruto, stop, please, it's alright, I'll save Sasuke-kun for you!_

Moments leading up to that day and its consequences flashed through her over and over, and in the safety of her tent, where no one could see her, she cried again.

Sai was wrong. Naruto wasn't the only one with broken promises. She knew a thing or two about them. But this time she could make it up to him and to the whole team that went out that day because she couldn't stop him.

Sakura wasn't like the rest of them, she had history with Sasuke. The only one that could kill him was for the sake of Konoha as Shikamaru explained to her, but for the sake of the gentle boy that got put on the team with her, the boy that was manipulated by the snake, the boy that didn't deserve any of it.

_Naruto, I'm keeping my promises to you. I'm saving Sasuke from his darkness…_

She pulled another piece of paper and tried to come up with what she could tell Naruto to make him accept Sasuke was too far gone, to make him forgive himself for the failure of that mission, to make him understand she never had any ill emotions for him because of what he did.

Her pen flew across the paper until it filled it completely front to back. This straightened out the jumbled mess in her head and she full-heartedly believed she could make Naruto see reason with the time left until Shikamaru put his plan in action.

Sakura folded the paper and tossed it inside one of her bags. By mistake she caught a glimpse of the first paragraph, which continued on a side she couldn't see anymore: _Naruto, everything started that night when Sasuke and I met and nothing I did stopped him. Everyone risked their lives and you came back bandaged from head to toe. All of this because of me. You've always protected me, took care of my burden when I couldn't do it. For that I thank you. But I'm not the same girl anymore and like I told you that day at the hospital, I'm going to help you save Sasuke. I've told you to treat me like a partner and yet, here you are getting beat up because of him and making Sai lie to protect me — it always comes back to protecting me… and it's only my fault for not acting like the partner I promised you…_

After handing off the scroll to Shikamaru, she went to the medicine tent where they kept supplies and tools to create ointments and treatments. She wasn't here for them. Instead, she checked out the herbs in storage and took the few poisonous ones she could find. The invasion left them short on supplies in general, poison ingredients more so as they weren't a priority to collect now when the focus was on healing those wounded during the reconstruction of the village.

The handful of leaves, stems, and roots she came up with wouldn't be enough for a regular fight and more so, when it was Sasuke she was going up against.

_"Poisons have their rules too, Sakura, just like any other jutsu or tool," Shizune said._

_A preteen Sakura gaped at the ingredients on the table. "What makes them ineffective?"_

_"Messing up the steps in preparing it: choosing the wrong ingredients, combining substances you shouldn't, and mixing them badly."_

Sakura went back to her tent, which she shared with Shizune. After the invasion, everyone tried to salvage the valuable objects they had. Which was why she went through Shizune's backpack and in a small hidden pocket she found it: a zip lock bag with dried buds inside.

The death flower.

Of course she would save this. Shizune had once told her that she had given " _both_ arms and legs" in order to buy it from a relic collector.

_"That's not all, is it?"_

_"No, but those are the steps that you can control," Shizune said. "The other factor is with your enemy… whether they have an antidote or if they have a resistance to it."_

_"How can you gain resistance to poison?"_

_"There is only one requirement: repeated exposure. You'd be amazed at the body's ability to adapt. It's the same rule with genetic passage. The same exposure, over the course of generations, not just to one person."_

Over 200 years ago before even the fathers of the founders of Konoha were born, there were fields of this demon flower on the east coast of the fire country. It was used to poison tip arrows and kunai and it became known as the deadliest poison. But a religious group decided to destroy the fields for the sake of humanity. The only home of the demon flower burned to a crisp until it was nothing a page of history.

A member of that group kept a few buds of the flower. For what reason, who knew, but when a relic collector bought an old tome from them, he found the dry pressed buds between the pages.

Shizune researched the grounds of the late flower for years and didn't find anything left that would let her get her hands on the deadliest poison in history. Word got around the region that a woman with black hair was scouting the grounds for the flower and the relic collector found her and gave her a deal.

After acquiring the flowers, Shizune spent the rest of her years trying to engineer a copy of them, a plant she could grow and use to serve her village. But she never found it.

_And now she never will._

Hands in tiger seal, she cast a basic illusion over the backpack just in case Shizune checked up on it. After all, Sakura was the best with genjutsu out of the three of them.

In the medicine tent, Sakura got to work on her concoction. She put the herbs on a metal tray and placed the death flower buds in the middle, as if it was the crown on a throne. How easily they fit together, dark greens and muddy browns popping out the cold dry green of the centerpiece.

A bouquet of death.

After the liquid component of the poison was done, she got to work on the main part. One by one, she put the herbs in the mortar and crushed them with the pestle. At last, the death flower came and as she pierced the crusty exterior of the bud, magenta pigment spilled inside.

It was a bud, alright, with the promise of blooming long gone from it.

As she crushed and mixed the last of her plants, the bright pigment disappeared inside the final mixture as if it never existed. Now to add it to the liquid and it would be done.

_"So how can you make an antidote?" she asked._

_"Ah, it depends. You have to find a substance that inactivates every corrosive chemical compound in the composition of the poison," she said and picked up a few roots to put into a mortar. "Oh, and very important. Affinity. If the antidote doesn't have a higher affinity for the poison than for the cell receptors in the body, it's useless."_

Everything was done for. The three milliliters of poison she put in a tube sealed with a cork and the companion to it she put in another tube connected to a needle with a cap on top.

Sakura cleaned the worktable and left the tent, the two tubes in the pouch at her hip. No one would ever know what she did in there. Back in her tent, she plopped herself on the bed and went over the time she had left.

It had to be at least a week before Shikamaru came up with a plan, located Sasuke, and gave the green light. How much longer would it be until Naruto came back from talking with the Raikage? She gulped… because she needed time to warm him up to the idea.

If he were to come back and find everyone in the midst of preparation for Sasuke's execution, she would have no chance. She recounted in her mind. It was a little past midday. It'd take Shikamaru the rest of the day to go through the material on Sasuke and the next day at least to come up with a plan.

Things wouldn't get moving for another day and a half. If she could have that, a whole 36 hours with Naruto as Team 7 with no threat looming over them, she would succeed. And to add to it, she couldn't deny that she wanted to spend those last 36 hours of acting like everything was alright, like there was still hope, with the one person who always gave her hope. Then after Naruto was primed, she could introduce him to the necessity of this step by step until he would be on the same page with Shikamaru.

Because between locating Sasuke and giving the green light, that was her time to act.

There was no time to lose. After she got Sai on the same page with her, she asked Kiba to help her track Naruto. Then they set out on the road, with Lee tagging along because the lands were dangerous.

They ran and ran. Sai was looking at her for some time, lips parting but closing up again. She gave him an inviting smile.

"Why did you ask me to come with you?"

She closed her eyes. "You're a part of Team 7. This is a team problem, you don't get to miss out on it." She laughed and he did too.

Kiba stopped to a halt.

"What is it, Kiba? Where's Naruto?" she asked.

Head slightly shaking, he looked down and his nose twitched one more time. "It's not Naruto… It's Sas'ke. He's here, now."

Her heart dropped in her chest. Could it be that he came after the jinchuriki of Konoha as well? No, he couldn't, how could Sasuke know Naruto came to this place when it was a spur of the moment decision to go? "Are they-" She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. "Are they together?"

"No," he said. They were running again. "Their smells are far away from each other… they don't mix at all."

She nodded, staring at the back of Kiba's head. "How much longer do we have?…"

"Naruto's close" was all he said.

Face firm, her feet slammed against the dirt in the same rhythm as before, but they were taking her somewhere completely different. Not to picking up her friend to go back home, but towards the last time she'd see Naruto.

Golden opportunities didn't come often and a ninja would be nothing but an idiot if they didn't take advantage of one right in front of them.

This was the best situation she could have asked for. She didn't have to find out Sasuke's location from whatever Shikamaru planned to acquire this information and she didn't have to sneak around the whole team in order to get to Sasuke before them. She didn't have to fight the team in order to prove to Sasuke it was him she wanted.

How much fitting could this be, a girl got shaken up by the destruction of her village so she left to be with her one true love? Because this was how it looked like. It looked like she ran away to be with him.

She could join him and carry out the rest of her plan.

It was in the Land of Snow, in a little town, that they found him. Naruto was on the roof of a destroyed inn with Kakashi and Yamato.

"Sakura-chan, why are you…?" he said, but she waved at him to come down. And they all did, snow crunching underneath their feet.

"I want to talk with you," she said, then motioned towards the others. "They helped me find you."

A hand rubbed the back of his neck as he asked, "About…?"

An earnest smile. "Naruto, I can't hide it anymore, the truth is… I love you." He took a step back. "I do, Naruto, I-"

"Why all of a sudden?…"

She blushed. "You're the hero of the village, you've always been by my side, you've always supported me." She got closer to him. "Now I know, it's always been you for me."

He clenched his jaw. "That's not true."

"Sasuke?" she said, the word so strong that it felt like there were no snowflakes falling between their bodies. "He's the past, you're my future, Naruto, please… Right now he couldn't be further away from my heart." She closed the gap between them, an arm wrapping around him and resting on the space between his shoulder blades, where she could feel his heart beating.

His arms were limp at his sides. "Just discard him?" he said. He gritted his teeth. "If he causes trouble, kill him as if he doesn't matter?" He got a hold of her arms and pushed her away from him. "Is that so, Sakura?"

Her eyes went wide, then she blinked again and again, as the fingers digging into her muscles became tougher and tougher.

Putting on a glare to match his own, Sakura shoved his hands off her. "He's a criminal now, he attacked Kumo. He's not the boy we knew."

"You don't understand," he said and for a moment he looked over his shoulder, where Kakashi was.

"I don't?" She looked at the two jonin, but she couldn't find what Naruto saw. "He's ruthless and he's strong. If you two fight, you'll both die." He started something but she talked over him. "No, you look me in the eye and try to deny it."

That he did. Blue eyes met green and held them there. Because he didn't speak, he couldn't.

"If I have somebody there with me, we could defeat Sasuke without kill-"

"You'll get them killed too. Don't you get it?" It was her time to turn to Kakashi. "How many days did Itachi bedridden you on both times you fought him?" His expression was stoic. Then she eyed Yamato. "How strong was the four tails form of the fox?"

"Because Sasuke killed Itachi and defeated the tailed beast from Kumo." Her eyes went over all three of them, in the end landing on Naruto. "You're fighting an uphill battle and dragging us down with you when you fail!"

Color drained from his face. This was it, she had to end it, to brutally drive the message home.

There was no other way to put it. "For Konoha…"

He lowered his head. "For Konoha… for the betterment of Konoha… for Konoha's future, Sasuke has to be sacrificed?"

The air became colder, but she held her head high as she said, "Yes, exactly that, yes."

Naruto eyed her from head to toe one last time. "People who think like this make me sick." He turned his back and entered the building. "I don't want to talk anymore."

She clenched her fists. "Fine, do whatever you want." She turned and motioned to the rest of her group to follow.

"Naruto's hurt," Sai said, not making a move.

"The truth hurts," she said and he said nothing in return, leaving them to be with Naruto.

She told her sensei they were heading back and that they should come back too because the village needed them. She left with Lee and Kiba, running in silence.

"Sakura-san, do you think he'll come to agree with Shikamaru?" Lee asked.

Flat smile. "I hope he's thinking about what I told him and he'll be on his way to Konoha soon."

Only he wouldn't. She didn't go through all of this theatre for nothing. From the moment Kiba located Sasuke, her heart had been set. She needed to get to Naruto and incapacitate him because if Naruto and Sasuke were in the same area, they would inevitably find their way to each other like magnets.

A confession was the one way she found to get her hand over his heart so she could cause him an unsustainable ventricular arrhythmia to make him go unconscious. Just like the mystic palm technique, she matched her chakra to his so he wouldn't notice.

He probably fainted, the two jonin rushing to his side to figure out what was going on. But before they could comprehend the situation and sprint to get to her, Naruto would have already recovered and they would stay with him while he rested.

They kept on running and when they reached the same stretch of woods that changed the course of her life, she stopped and said, "Kiba, I want you to help me locate Sasuke." The whole group stiffened. "Shikamaru asked me for a report on his abilities. We have the chance to get crucial information. The future of Konoha depends on the assassination mission."

Everyone understood where she was coming from so they parted from the road that led home and went somewhere else deep into the woods.

"What's our plan?" Kiba asked.

"Here's what I'm thinking: Kiba, you fight him with Akamaru. Lee and I will hide and watch. If you feel like you can't handle it, howl and I'll create a diversion and Lee will get you out of there."

The two boys nodded.

They ran and ran until the moment of the fight was there. "Alright, it's five minutes away, straight ahead."

"Stop for a moment," she said and both their glances shot at her. "I have soldier pills to replenish our chakra." She grabbed a handful from her pouch and extended her hand in front of her.

They thanked her, grabbed some and started munching on them. But at the same time, her other hand dropped three sleeping bombs from under her cloak. They exploded into a cloud of smoke and she jumped out of there, holding out her breath.

Sakura had made those for Naruto in case she had to get physical in getting him to Konoha. Lest to say, she made them potent enough to take him down. They would be sleeping for a while. The cloud dispersed and all three of them were fast asleep on the dirt road.

Still holding her breath, she cast a basic genjutsu over their bodies, and just like that, they were gone from the sight of passers-by. Not only were they protected by sight, but the sleep powder was still hanging in the air, small flakes that once inhaled would cause other people to fall asleep.

Sakura left them and took the first breath of air alone.

This was the last mile of her journey. She dropped her coat on the ground behind a tree, pilling her headband on top of it, and crouching next to it. There was no time for second questions now. She did a few seals, then pressed a hand on her right forearm and underneath it, she felt her jutsu come complete.

She grabbed a kunai and pierced the skin above, through the fatty tissue and muscle into the fibrous wall of the cyst she had just made. Green chakra isolated the lesions from the cyst, not yet healing as there was one last step to take.

Sakura popped the lid off the tube and poured the very last drop of poison inside her. She reworked the thick membrane back together and after she healed the wound, it was as if nothing happened, save for the cyst now nestled between chakra coils, arteries, and muscles.

She tucked the tube under her cloak and booked it down the road to Sasuke with only the objective in mind, feelings left long behind.

She spotted him while he was just a speckle in the distance, on top of a bridge. Chirping birds reached her before she got to the bridge, pushing chakra to her soles until she closed the gap.

"Sasuke-kun!" she yelled from the other side of the bridge.

"Sakura, huh?" He was wounded, blood on one cheek, and staining his shirt. At his feet, a redhead gasped for breath. Who did he fight here?

"I'm here because of you, I want to leave Konoha." When he narrowed his eyes, she put a hand to her heart and said, "All these years ago, you remember? I wanted to leave with you that night. I wanted to help you with revenge. Because I love you. None of that has changed." His chidori gave out, so she jumped over the gap in the bridge. "I'm a medical ninja, I trained under a Sanin, I can help-"

"Do you know what I want?" he asked. She started to say 'It doesn't mat-' but he talked over her. "I want to destroy Konoha."

Sakura gulped and nodded. "It doesn't matter. A place without you means nothing to me. I want to be with you."

"Prove it," Sasuke said and pointed at the girl. "Kill her and I'll accept your offer."

Sakura crouched and turned the girl with the face side up. She had been stabbed in the chest, a gaping wound right through the upper part of the sternum, heart probably still intact, pumping blood out her body.

Red eyes followed her as she inspected her, lips trembled to say something and fingers twitched. She was cognitive still. Instinct told her that if she acted now, she could save her.

Instead, she grabbed a kunai from her pouch and severed both her carotid arteries with heavy hands, medical oath chanting in her heart all the while. How Sakura felt about it wasn't important now.

_No matter what the situation… a shinobi must keep their emotions on the inside… You must make the mission your top priority… Carry that in your heart and never shed a tear…_

The deed was done and now she was back on her feet. His eyes analyzed her and she nodded as if answering his unspoken question. Yes, she was in it for real.

"Are you hurt?" she asked and somehow at that moment, he bent forward, coughing a raspy wet cough.

She stepped towards him, but he stepped back, putting an arm in front of him. "Your weapons, drop them."

She took off her gloves, unhooked the shuriken holder, and tossed them to the side. She threw the pouch in the pile, dropping the kunai perched on top of it at the ground at her feet.

It was only after she turned around in a circle, showing him there was nothing left, that Sasuke dropped to the ground, heaving loudly.

"Where does it hurt?" she asked.

Sasuke pointed at his chest, where his shirt was ripped. "I was stabbed with a sword."

"Did you use anything to heal?"

He nodded towards the redhead. "Her ability, I get chakra when I bite her."

Sakura nodded and placed glowing hands on his chest. It entered at the fifth intercostal space, exited a bit higher at the back. Skin, superficial tissues, and external pleura were intact. But the bottom lobe of the right lung was still injured, bleeding into the pleural cavity.

"The open wounds were healed but you're still injured. I don't think she had enough chakra to heal you completely," she said and put her hands into the tiger seal.

Glowing hands pressed to his chest, one at the front and the other at the back, and they repaired him from inside out. Internal wounds were sutured, blood drained, and location of intervention decontaminated. He would have to take antibiotics to prevent pneumonia or abscess, that was if he got to that.

"How do you feel?" she said after she finished the procedure.

"Better," he said and took in easier breaths. "Thank you."

Sakura gulped and her eyelids trembled. "You're still dyspneic. I need to assess the damage to your lungs. If I get a clear picture now, I can do an emergency intervention to save as much function as possible." The air between them dropped, but it picked back up when she said, "Sasuke-kun, no breathing, no air, fatigue… How are you going to use ninjutsu or taijutsu like that?"

Sasuke hung his head low, looking at the missing part of the bridge in front of him.

"Every touch, deep breath," she said and placed a glowing hand to his chest. Top to bottom, left to right. Then she moved behind him and did the same.

It was when she got to the bottom right that the cyst in her forearm popped, flooding her arteries and chakra coils with poison.

Two fingers pointed into a scalpel, pulling chakra through the tiny openings at the tips, and they plunged straight into his back at the L4 level, where there were no ribs and short transverse processes. A clear cut through the muscles all the way into the vein resting on top of the spinal column.

The poison was inside him now.

She barely managed to pull her hand out, suturing on the way out, when Sasuke elbowed her chest. He sent her flying backwards over the redhead.

Sakura scrambled back up in time for that familiar chirp to screech between them. His fingertips started to shake and his jutsu fizzled out. The poison already reached his heart. She didn't puncture that one vein for no reason. It led straight to the heart.

"Traitor," he said and moved towards her. Poisoned as he was, there was no more room for chakra play.

He punched at her and she dodged short off a hair, getting out of his way and heading to her discarded pouch. She had to get the-

Sasuke grabbed her leg and she fell face straight into the cement. She slammed her foot in his chin and he lost the grip he had on her.

Dragging herself along the ground and panting more by the moment, she got a hold of the bag, digging in to grab the small vial, liquid and needle visible through the glass.

But as she got her hands on it, Sasuke got on top of her, grabbed a handful of hair and slammed her head into the ground so hard it broke her jaw.

The vial slipped from her hand, rolling on foreword. Eyes wide open, Sakura gritted her teeth and thrust her head back into his nose.

Again she escaped his grip and crawled towards the vile. First on her knees and when that got too hard, with the body flush to the ground and when her legs stopped responding, by the sheer force of her arms.

Sakura grazed the cold glass when a kunai — _her_ kunai— plunged into the back of her hand, Sasuke's left hand falling from the handle on top of hers.

Her fingers twitched, the other arm not responding to her. Still, she pushed, trying to get to it-

Sasuke grabbed the vile, popped the cap off, and slammed the needle into his arm.

He was heaving as he said, "You lied."

She tried to shake her head, the motion sending daggers through her cranium. "No, I love you… and it's because I love you… that you get the only dose." She forced air into her lungs. "That's a poison enhancer. It's not a cure." She coughed blood. "…there's no cure."

_Sasuke-kun, your suffering ends now._

A coughing fit, a hand covered his mouth to stop the blood from pouring out. His knees and elbows gave out, face smashing against the limbs twitched out of his control, he managed to turn on his back, to catch his breath, most likely.

Her body froze building up to the inferno. She had no energy to keep her head up anymore, so she laid there watching him out of her one good eye.

His hand gripped his chest over his heart and his neck tensed up, muscles firmly in place. His one eye caught hers as he said his last words, "my family…"

When she saw it lose that spark, Sakura knew it was the end for him and just the beginning for her.

Fire burned inside her arms and daggers shot towards her spine, pure lighting coursing through her back and down her limbs. She didn't belong to herself anymore, body twitching on its own accord with a pain so out of this world, it had to be the gateway to hell.

A quarter later, she felt the same shiver that took him shaking up her heart until it came to a still.

And in the end, here they laid, Sasuke and Sakura, under the same sky.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The vein Sakura punctured is called the vena cava and it sits on top of the spinal column on the right. The scientific name for the "shiver" that shook their hearts is ventricular fibrillation.  
> I'm proud of this one. Hopefully, I was able to capture the essence of SS and serve it to you with the thing that fits it best, angst.  
> All comments are appreciated. Thank you.


End file.
